Kate Herzig ‘We’re All In This Together’

Swoony fabulousness

July 13th, 2010 at 10:57 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Culture


Red Link 18/06/10

Today marks the kick off of Dublin Pride. There are bucket loads of things to do and see during the festival, but RIP looks dangerously hip.

One of those What If moments.

Are trends becoming obsolete?

Deconstructing American maps.

The hidden posters of Notting Hill tube station.

The Orange study of the recent UK election on the Internet.

College open days as iPhone apps, adding more accessibility?

June 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am • 1 Comment • Filed in Red Links


Red Links 14/06/10

Crowdsourcing a Summer mixtape.

The case for removing banner ads from the web and wrapping advertising in content.

Who are our heroes?

iPads in White House. I wonder how many are in Government Buildings.

iPad + Velcro. Would you be tempted?

June 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Red Links


On investigative economic reporting and This American Life

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of home decorating. Bit by bit, I’ve been working through the podcast archive of WBEZ’s This American Life. Where the archive really shines is in its economic analysis pieces.

Two years ago as Lehman Brothers collapsed and AIG fell, This American Life began to try to explain what was happening and who the principals were. While the reasons of the global financial crisis differ from Ireland’s, the forces at work are the same – greed, short-term banking decisions, loose regulation and too much money chasing too few resources.

The thing why I really love TAL’s approach to reporting is that it doesn’t patronise the listener. How does a bank work? TAL explains. What is leverage? TAL explains. Don’t know what a collaterised debt obligation is? TAL explains. Working off a base of first principles, TAL opens doors for listeners as well as interviewing people that worked at those institutions about how they worked and about the morality of those decisions.

Ireland needs a TAL approach to investigative reporting now more than ever before. Imagine trying to get a handle on who knew what and when?

I doubt that we will ever see the like of the TAL approach to economic reportage. There are two main reasons for this:

  1. The bankers that caused the damage are still working. We haven’t seen anyone go to jail for the damage they caused to the Irish economy. Excluding the top brass that have graced our Sundays, many of the bankers are shadowy bedfellows to developers and we will never know them.
  2. The media isn’t interested in educating the public and it’s too hard to marry this with trying to source bankers willing to speak on the record. Investigating the area is expensive in time and manpower. Even more so when trying to liven up copy to a jaded listenership.

Investigative podcasters, check out

The first three episodes listed are *highly* recommended!

June 14th, 2010 at 11:48 am • 1 Comment • Filed in Business


Decorating by numbers

The path to a happy modern life, is a happy modernist living room. Having scoured every renov blog with Danish sensibilities written by shaggy hipsters called Eliot from Portland, I’ve deduced I need the following things for my thirties. Consider it Eno for Interiors.

June 8th, 2010 at 11:38 am • Add Comment • Filed in Design


Red Links 01/06/10

Top 10 most borrowed books in Irish libraries.

The last Pecha Kucha happens on Thursday night from 7pm in The Sugar Club.

When IBM met the muppets via Michael.

iPad apps that don’t suck.

Actually on iPad apps – check out Air Display and make your iPad an extension for your monitor!

About a dash.

Typography for lawyers.

Are there “weird life” spheres right here?

June 1st, 2010 at 1:47 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Red Links


On the flotilla and Don’t Knows

I was going to avoid the rush to blog on Flotillagate as the numbers junkies like to blog those topics for extra relevance juice. But fuck it.

This morning, the Israeli Defence Forces stormed a group of boats holding aid. The flotilla – so named by the aid workers activists- was stormed in international waters.

We’re still caught in a media free-for-all where propaganda from both sides is vying for attention.

There are things we know and things we don’t know. Unless you are on-board one of the ships and viewing the scene from an independent POV, you really don’t know what really happened and you don’t know in what order it happened.

You don’t know of the allegations that aid workers activists fired on the IDF. You don’t know if the flotilla carried weapons. You don’t know if the IDF really did take ever step possible to warn the flotilla before boarding and how they did it. You don’t know if the IDF had a shoot to kill order.

A thousand editorials are being written today for a thousand newspapers tomorrow on the storming but there are still so many Don’t Knows. Michael Martin is meeting the Israeli ambassador this afternoon and we can expect the Irish government to respond within hours. Can Don’t Knows really be dispelled so fast?

May 31st, 2010 at 2:47 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Politics


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